Tag: Atheist

The Atheistic Criticism of Religion

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

The Atheistic Criticism of Religion

When an atheist criticizes religion for the most part  they are simply criticizing the human condition; which is one of ignorance, sinfulness and hypocrisy.  These characteristics can be found in any society, culture and civilization and for that matter in every person.  They are found in religious cultures, secular cultures and atheistic cultures.  They are common to all men. Pointing these things out in any culture modern or ancient does not take a great deal of intelligence nor understanding.  It reflects a pretentious self-righteousness when criticizing others to exalt oneself.  Given the same circumstances and conditions most humans will react in  similar ways.  Much of the criticism of religion by atheism is nothing more than posing self righteous virtue at the best, and total moral egotism at its worst.  Their criticism proves nothing other than humanity is ignorant, sinful, hypocritical and poisons everything he touches.

The truth is that atheism as an ideology or as a foundational philosophy for a culture, has demonstrated itself to be totally inadequate to support a virtuous culture any more than religion.  In fact, all atheistic cultures have led to totalitarianism and even Europe as it embraces the secular is moving towards totalitarianism.  One should be careful in tearing down the poor man’s house unless he has something better to offer.

Moreover, the atheistic criticism of Christianity represents a shallow understanding of the message of Jesus.  A casual reading of the New Testament would demonstrate to any rational person that Jesus never intended his teachings to be the foundation of any large society, for his teachings are too demanding for the masses.  Yet, many atheists continue to attack the teachings of Western Christianity as though they were the pristine teachings of Jesus; in this they demonstrate their ignorance or their dishonesty.  In the majority of cases it is ignorance, at least from my experience most atheists are quite ignorant of Christian theology and often depend on a vulgar interpretation of Christianity to justify their criticism.

The Making of an Fundamentalist Atheist

Quotes on The Relationship of Science and Religion

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Religion, Science

Science doesn’t draw conclusions about supernatural explanations Do gods exist? Do supernatural entities intervene in human affairs? These questions may be important, but science won’t help you answer them. Questions that deal with supernatural explanations are, by definition, beyond the realm of nature — and hence, also beyond the realm of what can be studied by science.” Science Dept — University of California at Berkeley
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“science describes and explains the natural world: it does not prove or disprove beliefs about the supernatural” — American Anthropological Association
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“no aspect of science can address supernatural questions…..supernatural entities by definition operate outside of natural laws and so [truly] cannot be investigated using methods of experimentation” — American Association For the Advancement of Science
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“Science is not based on faith, nor does it preclude faith” — American Astronomical Society
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” theologians may also be interested in the physical world, but in addition they usually believe in a metaphysical or supernatural realm inhabited by souls, spirits, angels, or gods, and this heaven or nirvana is often believed to be the future resting place of all believers after death. Such supernatural constructions are beyond the scope of science” — National Academy of Sciences
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” science is precluded from making statements about supernatural forces because these are outside its provenance.” — National Science Teachers Association
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“Explanations employing nonnaturalistic or supernatural events, whether or not explicit reference is made to a supernatural being, are outside the realm of science …. all of science, is necessarily silent on religion and neither refutes nor supports the existence of a deity or deities.” National Association of Biology Teachers

The Curse Of The Secular

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism, Liberalism, Religion

The Curse Of The Secular

There was a time when Western culture had sacred times, places and men.  Now we have the secular and everything has become equal and ordinary.  The mystery in the world has been taken out of the holy and sacred, leaving us with nothing but the secular or the profane without mystery and without wonder.  This is a huge negative because it’s out of wonder and mystery that the celebration of life comes.  We celebrate life because of its mystery.  Once the mystery is taken out there is nothing left but hollow and empty dogmas’.

For example, we used to dress up for special occasions, but now we have few special occasions and the ones that we have are empty for most people.  Everything, everyone and every place is equal, the special has been overcome by the ordinary.  The weak, the insignificant and the small have overcome the big and the powerful.  The sacred has been destroyed by the ordinary.  The curse of secularism has come upon us.  Increasingly our language is becoming profane and secular.  Nothing is holy, nothing is sacred, all words are profane, which in the end means nothing is important or special because everything is equal. Good is evil and evil is good.  Nothing is sacred, all is profane.

Some would say that science has done this but that’s not the case, what really has done it is the ego of man who has made himself larger, and God small, to the point that God has been eliminated from the world of us men.  In contrast, true science has proven that the creation is infinitely big and infinitely small beyond the imagination of man.  The problem is that science, like religion, has been over powered by the profane and has become secularized.  Remember, that early scientist’s were some of the greatest men of faith.  Their science was a wellspring of wonder and amazement at the creation of God.  Their science came out of wonder, today the science of the secular comes out of doubting.  It was not science, that emptied science of faith, but rather it was the secular and profane thinking of the enlightenment which profaned science and culture, and even religion.

It is surprising that atheism and Christianity has one thing in common, both equalize everything.  Atheism does it by making everything equally profane and Christianity does it by making everything sacred.  Christianity, if I understand it correctly makes everything sacred.  All men are sacred, all places are sacred, all truth is sacred and all time is sacred.  Therefore, Christianity is a positive force in the world exulting all things to a higher level where unbelief is a negative force reducing everything to the profane, even human life.

If I am correct the secular world is, and will, pay a terrible price for their belief system of the secular.  We can begin to see some of the consequences of the secular mind in the atheistic systems of communism and socialism.  But the horrors have just begun.  The profaning of sexuality, marriage and the family will usher in the complete collapse of civilization as we know it today.  It will reduce everything to the level of beasts seeking the lowest common  denominator.  Secularism is man’s attempt to return to all fours.

The Assumptions of Atheism

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

The Assumptions of Atheism

The atheism faith is based upon two assumptions that cannot be proven.  And yes, it is a faith because it is an ideal that exists in the human mind and is supported by other human beliefs.  The ideal that it is a non-belief is nothing but atheistic sophistry.  Calling atheism a non-belief is like calling it a non-idea.  It’s just more nonsense.

Let’s look at their assumptions.  The first one being that there is no God.  No one can prove that there is no God, for in order to do so they would have to be everywhere in the universe at the same time and also outside of the universe at the same time for in the very place that they were not, might be the very place that the uncreated one is present.  They would also have to know everything in the universe for if there was one thing that they didn’t know it might be that there’s a God.  In essence, they would have to be God in order to say with certitude that there isn’t a God.  The atheist always has to leave a small possibility that their might be a god, which possibly in itself negates the very idea of atheism.  However, out of their fear of the camel getting his nose into the tent many pretend to deny the possibility altogether.

The second assumption, which I have found in most atheists, is the belief that they are smarter than those who believe in a God.  I have found this trait even in those who seem to be friendly towards religion.  Of course, this is an assumption that has no scientific basis.  In fact, a recent polling of scientist’s indicate that the split is about 50-50, as to whether or not they believe in some kind of higher power[1].  There is also evidence that at higher levels of IQ there is about equal numbers of people who believe in a Higher power.  Some believe that the American philosopher and psychiatrist William James was the most intelligent man in recent times, and of course he was a believer.  He had an estimated IQ of twice that of Einstein.  Christopher Michael Langan is considered by many to be the most intelligent human being alive today, he has a confirmable IQ of somewhere between 195 and 210.[2]  Christopher Michael Langan does believe in a God.  Of course, this neither proves nor disproves the existence of a God, but it does prove that the atheists second assumption, that they are smarter than believers, is completely and utterly wrong.

[1]“The stats say that the split is about 50-50 of those who believe in God and those who do not. A survey taken by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in May and June of this year and reported by David Masci in the Los Angeles Times, found that 51% do believe in God and 41% do not.  These numbers haven’t changed much over the last 100 years either,  despite the numerous discoveries in evolution and biochemistry over the years.”  Suzanne Kennedy; bitesizebio.com 12/21/09

[2] Depending on the source or reference either in news articles, blogs, interviews, Scientific Journals or magazines over the years, Christopher Michael Langan is quoted as having a confirmable IQ of anywhere between 195-205.  He has developed a “theory of the relationship between mind and reality” which he calls the “Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe” (CTMU)

Primal Scream-The Atheist Illusion

Posted on by Lyle Duell in Apologetics, Atheism

The Atheist Illusion

For as bats’ eyes are to daylight so is our intellectual eye to those truths which are, in their own nature, the Most obvious of all.” Aristotle

The greatest illusion embraced by the atheist is not that there’s no God but rather that they are free from illusions.  The belief that you are free of all illusions is the most dangerous illusion of all for it opens the floodgates to the acceptance of unreality in a multitude of forms.

It is self-evident that the atheist has not experienced God, but how in the world can they deny that others have not experienced God?   Especially since experiencing God is a personal matter that cannot be judged empirically by outsiders.  You cannot get into another man’s mind or body to know how or what he is, or has experienced.  Yet this is the very thing that an atheist must  assert.  Therefore, their claim to know another’s mind; this is an illusion of knowledge that cannot be known.

We know that human beings experience pain to various degrees and that it is impossible for someone to experience  another man’s pain precisely and to the same degree.  The same thing is true of our own experience of God since people tend to experience God in different ways and to different degrees.  Consequently, the atheist claim that there is no God is totally unreasonable and contrary to the experiences of billions of people. Thus, the only real claim that they can reasonably make is that they have not experienced God.  Yet in their arrogance they go one step further and say that no one has experienced God and they usually add, that if  the believer claims to have experienced God, then they’re delusional.

The only rational claim they can stand on; is that they have not experienced God.  However that might be saying too much for they could have experienced God and not recognized it as a God experience.  This would be a very likely theorem because their preconceived biases could keep them from recognizing a God experience, if they had one.  Not surprisingly, many atheists will say that since they have not experienced God, He cannot exist, or that God in some way, is obligated to reveal Himself to them in such a way that his existence would be undeniable.  They seldom blame themselves for accepting an ideology or worldview that will not allow or hide them from experiencing God.  It could be that they’re like a blind man who denies the existence of color because he cannot see it or has not experienced it and then blames color for its own inability to be seen.

In the end, the old saying that a man with an argument will never convince the man with an experience is true.  The only people who atheists will move to their unbelief are those who have never experienced God and are already in a sense, in the atheist camp.  Atheists will never be able to argue that God does not exist with a man who has experienced him.  That would be like telling a person who was rescued from drowning in the sea by a man in a lifeboat, that the man who saved him really did not exist.

Humans come to know things in many ways.  We learn through our minds, but we also learn through our numerous senses. Specifically, our mind processes the information that we obtain through our  senses.  However if some senses have been crippled or damaged a person may become dead to that sense and no longer be able to experience anything that comes through it.  It could be that some knowledge requires more than one sense.  I believe this is the case with the knowledge of God.  The knowledge of God requires the whole man.  If any part of the man has been damaged or disabled it becomes increasingly hard for that man to experience God in any meaningful way.

As a result talking to some atheists is often like talking to a handicapped man who doesn’t know that he’s handicapped.  They are like children who have grown up in a dysfunctional family and cannot see the dysfunction because it has been normalized by their family.  Some even mock and belittle the idea of family because of their experiences. They simply cannot believe in a real family.  In this they are very much like the atheist who has not experienced God for his goodness and therefore cannot imagine His existence.  They have been handicapped by living in their dysfunction.  I once suggested this to a young atheist at which he let out a primal scream “I’m not broken”.  His scream of denial was evidence of his illusion and also his denial of it.